As a result of this agreement, Obra Social la Caixa and the Museo del Prado will be combining their educational experience with the aim of offering new family and school-oriented activities at the Museum over the next four school years.

MADRID.- In an unprecedented collaboration between the two institutions, the Prado will be launching the most ambitious educational programme of its history, aimed at schools and families. This new programme will officially last for four years (2009-2013) and will annually benefit more than 200,000 school-aged children. As a result of the agreement signed today, la Caixa will contribute 720,000 Euros to this programme as well as its own experience and educational methodology. The programme will begin next academic term and will encompass a wide-ranging and innovative range of visits to the collections aimed at Primary and Secondary-school children, as well as backup material for teachers and for families with children visiting the Museum.

The Minister of Culture, Ángeles González-Sinde, today presided over the signing of a collaborative agreement for the development of this programme. Plácido Arango, President of the Museums Board of Trustees, Isidro Fainé, President of la Caixa and the Fundación la Caixa, and Miguel Zugaza, Director of the Museo del Prado, signed the agreement, whose aim is the joint promotion of a specific programme aimed at school children and families visiting the Museum.

As a result of this agreement, Obra Social la Caixa and the Museo del Prado will be combining their educational experience with the aim of offering new family and school-oriented activities at the Museum over the next four school years. This new programme includes explanatory visits for school groups, accompanied by educational dossiers with project and work suggestions to be carried out in the classroom before and after the visit. There will also be a dossier designed for teachers to help them lead independent trips around the Museum, as well as an educational game for families visiting the permanent collection with children.

Aware of the Museums educational importance and the enormous didactic potential of its collections, the two institutions aim to offer an optimum experience of the Prado through two key sectors for Education, namely the school and the family. This new programme will reach around 800,000 children and young people during its first four years of existence, in other words, an average of more than 200,000 school children per year. They will be Primary and Secondary-school students, taking part in the explanatory visits organised by the Museum, or on independent trips led by their teachers, or making use of the interactive game designed for their use during family visits.

In addition, the Museum will be completing this programme with a special focus on groups of Bachillerato-level students, an area previously attended with enormous success by the Fundación de Amigos del Museo. Finally, there will be a programme for kindergarten-aged children, with the global result that all levels of the Spanish school system are included in this new initiative.